Kids in foster care who are seeking "forever families" are the subjects in a new photo exhibit at the Broadway Mall in Hicksville, NY. The exhibit is organized by Heart Gallery and is the first of its kind on Long Island.

Tina Traster, author and mother to a Russian-adopted daughter with Reactive Attachment Disorder, talks about her "aha moment," warning signs of RAD, how she has treated her daughter's RAD, and what she hopes readers take away from her book on the subject, "Rescuing Julia Twice."

What do you need to know to become a foster parent? We talked with Nicole L. Mudd, a foster care home-finder for Berkshire Farm Center and Services for Youth on Long Island, about what it takes to be a foster parent, rights and responsibilities of the job, and other ways to help children in need.

Today, open adoption is almost universally accepted. Years ago that was not the case. In a personal account, Titia Ellis speaks of the shame and secrets surrounding her own adoption, and the search for her birth family.

Forever Families Through Adoption (FFTA) of Rye Brook, a New York and Connecticut licensed adoption placement agency and resource center, raised more than $15,000 at its second annual gourmet tasting event and silent auction.

Since 1963, Abbott House has served the five boroughs of NYC and the lower and mid-Hudson Valley region. The only program of its kind in the state, the Bridge Family model unites families who are considering adoption with teens who have been in the foster care system for the majority of their lives...

After seven years of intensive treatment for unexplained infertility, and after seven years of ignoring the problem while dealing with a live-in mother-in-law with Alzheimer's disease, I was sure infertility would leave me emotionally hobbled forever.

With so many families choosing to adopt children from foreign countries, many factors come into play in keeping the adoptee’s birth heritage alive. Through interaction with organizations that post events and offer advice and social outlets, families are able to help celebrate cultural differences together with their children.

Alexei acts like any other fourth grader. He listens to Jessica Simpson and shoots hoops with his brother after school. In the school orchestra he plays the violin, and he will be one of the townspeople in the school production of "The Music Man”. Ask him any baseball trivia question, he’ll give you the answer. His mother, Terry Naumann of Yorktown Heights, unabashedly describes Alexei as "slender and handsome" with a "wry sense of humor”. Yet a little over three years ago, the boy behind the hazel eyes with long, thick lashes didn’t know a word of English and was headed toward a dismal life as an orphan in Siberia.

Deb Capone tells people that when she adopted her daughter, Noelle, from Hunan Province, China, in 2000, she knowingly joined the legion of “the sleep-deprived” and unknowingly became part of what has emerged as one of the fastest-growing segments of the U.S. population: the transracial family.

Most parents will agree that the journey to becoming a family is a complex mosaic of uncertainties and possibilities. For those who build families through international adoption, the road to parenthood is a maze of passageways paved with risks. But the prospect of creating a family propels them forward — even when some of the risks make headline news.

By the time he was 15, Robert had lived in seven foster care homes and one residential treatment facility. He was available for adoption but that seemed unlikely; the young man was concerned about what would happen to him when he ‘aged out’ of the foster care system at 18. Then he got lucky.

“My daughter is Chinese. She will grow up as an American but her heritage is Chinese and I want her to remember that.” These are the words of Marjorie Berman of Ardsley, the adoptive mother of four-year-old Sophia Kosman, who left her native country at the age of 13 months. Like most Americans who have adopted children from other countries in recent years, Berman is determined that her daughter will be proud of the place where she was born.

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NYMetroParents is the parenting division of Davler Media Group and encompasses 9 regional print magazines within the greater NY metro region as well as the website (nymetroparents.com). Following the success of the first NYC parenting resource book, "Big Apple Baby," BIG APPLE PARENT was launched in 1985; it is now the largest publisher of regional parenting content in the United States.